the subject supposed to knowhttp://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 03:23:21 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.1she to whom anything could be and was done–in the millionshttp://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/she-to-whom-anything-could-be-and-was-done-in-the-millions/
Fri, 18 Aug 2017 03:23:21 +0000http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/?p=1479This mini-documentary is amazing!

When I use words like “subhuman” or “untouchable” to describe myself, it’s certain to be dismissed by normal people as melodrama. Dirty Girls is great for capturing what it’s really like and has always been like, as long as you can’t hide away from the normal people somewhere. This is what happens to you if your family falls apart and you get molested. This is what you deal with if you’re actually anti-fascist and see the big picture.

Look at how smug the normal people are, how casually superior, how dismissive, how insulting, how dumb, how chickenshit. Tear down the people calling for solidarity. Look at how they simultaneously create the problems and demean them and dismiss the girls for talking about them. They really do need to assert a basic right to their anger and sadness, because they really are psychologically tortured for them.

Each one of those normal people only fucks with the girls when it’s convenient, they have a group behind them, etc. Each of them has never truly sat down and imagined the cumulative effect of everyone doing what they’re doing. They’re not on a mission specifically to ruin their targets’ lives, so what’s the big deal?

Dirty girls, dirty Jews. It’s all the same thing. America rejected Andrea Dworkin for writing down the deeper meaning of Nazism:

The beautiful Jewess ravaged and dragged through the streets by her hair is still enticing, still vibrantly alive in the pool of sexual images that mystify the Jewish woman. But the Nazis in reality created a kind of sexual degradation that was–and remains–unspeakable. Even Sade did not dare imagine what the Nazis created and neither did the Cossacks. And so the sexualization of the Jewish woman took on a new dimension. She became the carrier of a new sexual memory, one so brutal and sadistic that its very existence changed the character of the mainstream sexual imagination.

The concentration camp woman–emaciated with bulging eyes and sagging breasts and bones sticking out all over and shaved head and covered in her own filth and cut up and whipped and stomped on and punched out and starved–became the hidden sexual secret of our time. The barely faded, easily accessible memory of her sexual degradation is at the heart of the sadism against all women that is now promoted in mainstream sexual propaganda: she in the millions, she naked in the millions, she utterly at the mercy of–in the millions, she to whom anything could be and was done–in the millions, she for whom there will never be any justice or revenge–in the millions. It is her existence that has defined contemporary mass sexuality, given it its distinctly and unabashedly mass-sadistic character.

The Germans had her, had the power to make her. The others want her, want the power to make her. And it must be said that the male of a racially despised group suffers because he has been kept from having her, from having the power to make her. He may mourn less what has happened to her than that he did not have the power to do it. When he takes back his manhood, he takes her back, and on her he avenges himself: through rape, prostitution, and forced pregnancy; through despising her, his contempt expressed in art and politics and pleasure. This avenging–the reclamation of masculinity–is evident among Jewish and black males, though it is in no way limited to them. In fact, in creating a female degraded beyond human recognition, the Nazis set a new standard of masculinity, honored especially in the benumbed conscience that does not even notice sadism against women because that sadism is so ordinary…

It is her image–hiding, running, captive, dead–that evokes the sexual triumph of the sadist. She is his sexual memory and he lives in all men. But this memory is not recognized as a sexual fact, nor is it acknowledged as male desire: it is too horrible. Instead, she wants it, they all do. The Jews went voluntarily to the ovens.

That is the truth, and everybody who’s been an outcast knows it. Where were the super villains in Dirty Girls. It was just ordinary kids, who no doubt went on to be respectable.

I was basically the guy who read the ‘zine and said, “Wow, this is a fascinating Marxist critique of society.”

Normal people aren’t against bullying, so they aren’t against Nazism. There is absolutely no difference. They are of one essence. Treating those girls like shit is also the essence of social hierarchy. This is why anarchism is the only consistent political philosophy.

Anarchism is more optimistic and pessimistic about human nature than what’s normal. I think it’s more honest about what’s there. Nobody is going to be above the temptations of power, so eliminate them. If we do that and get our heads straight, we got this on our own. Cooperating and shit. When you penetrate down to the essence of how to treat other people, that is anarchism. Because so many different stigmas applied to me, and I’m autistic, of course I noticed the pattern: domination is bad. This is what veganism and anarchism have to do with each other: respect for all sentient beings.

We’re actually in uncharted territory, because I saw this article at Slate. They talked to Charlottesville eyewitnesses about the anarchists. Thank you Dahlia Lithwick.

It was basically impossible to miss the antifa for the group of us who were on the steps of Emancipation Park in an effort to block the Nazis and alt-righters from entering. Soon after we got to the steps and linked arms, a group of white supremacists—I’m guessing somewhere between 20-45 of them—came up with their shields and batons and bats and shoved through us. We tried not to break the line, but they got through some of us—it was terrifying, to say the least—shoving forcefully with their shields and knocking a few folks over. We strengthened our resolve and committed to not break the line again. Some of the anarchists and anti-fascist folks came up to us and asked why we let them through and asked what they could do to help. Rev. Osagyefo Sekou talked with them for a bit, explaining what we were doing and our stance and asking them to not provoke the Nazis. They agreed quickly and stood right in front of us, offering their help and protection.

Less than 10 minutes later, a much larger group of the Nazi alt-righters come barreling up. My memory is again murky on the details. (I was frankly focused on not bolting from the scene and/or not soiling myself—I know hyperbole is common in recounting stories like these, but I was legitimately very worried for my well-being and safety, so I was trying to remember the training I had acquired as well as, for resolve, to remember why I was standing there.) But it had to have been at least 100 of them this go around. I recall feeling like I was going to pass out and was thankful that I was locked arms with folks so that I wouldn’t fall to the ground before getting beaten. I knew that the five anarchists and antifa in front of us and the 20 or so of us were no match for the 100-plus of them, but at this point I wasn’t letting go.

At that point, more of the anarchists and antifa milling nearby saw the huge mob of the Nazis approach and stepped in. They were about 200-300 feet away from us and stepped between us (the clergy and faith leaders) and the Nazis. This enraged the Nazis, who indeed quickly responded violently. At this point, Sekou made a call that it was unsafe—it had gotten very violent very fast—and told us to disperse quickly.

While one obviously can’t objectively say what a kind of alternate reality or “sliding doors”–type situation would have been, one can hypothesize or theorize. Based on what was happening all around, the looks on their faces, the sheer number of them, and the weapons they were wielding, my hypothesis or theory is that had the antifa not stepped in, those of us standing on the steps would definitely have been injured, very likely gravely so. On Democracy Now, Cornel West, who was also in the line with us, said that he felt that the antifa saved his life. I didn’t roll my eyes at that statement or see it as an exaggeration—I saw it as a very reasonable hypothesis based on the facts we had.

Someone else:

I stood with a group of interfaith clergy and other people of faith in a nonviolent direct action meant to keep the white nationalists from entering the park to their hate rally. We had far fewer people holding the line than we had hoped for, and frankly, it wasn’t enough. No police officers in sight (that I could see from where I stood), and we were prepared to be beaten to a bloody pulp to show that while the state permitted white nationalists to rally in hate, in the many names of God, we did not. But we didn’t have to because the anarchists and anti-fascists got to them before they could get to us. I’ve never felt more grateful and more ashamed at the same time. The antifa were like angels to me in that moment.

A phalanx of neo-Nazis shoved right through our human wall with 3-foot-wide wooden shields, screaming and spitting homophobic slurs and obscenities at us. It was then that antifa stepped in to thwart them. They have their tools to achieve their purposes, and they are not ones I will personally use, but let me stress that our purposes were the same: block this violent tide and do not let it take the pedestal.

The white supremacists did not blink at violently plowing right through clergy, all of us dressed in full clerical garb. White supremacy is violence. I didn’t see any racial justice protesters with weapons; as for antifa, anything they brought I would only categorize as community defense tools and nothing more. Pretty much everyone I talk to agrees—including most clergy. My strong stance is that the weapon is and was white supremacy, and the white supremacists intentionally brought weapons to instigate violence.

Now do people understand why TV tells them to hate anarchists so much? Do people understand what TV is about? All of TV helped to elect Trump, and he’s a fucking Nazi. Fascism is good for business. No shit. And they are fucking coming for us! Do you understand? Yes, Nazis are scary. Very fucking scary and you don’t have a choice whether they exist or not. An irrational, terrifying force composed of your neighbors. Welcome to real life. I think this is also the deeper meaning of zombie fiction.

I’d also like to emphasize that Naomi Wolf said this was going to happen 10 years ago.

If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree – domestically – as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government – the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens’ ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors – we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don’t learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of “homeland” security – remember who else was keen on the word “homeland” – didn’t raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable – as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.

]]>stop the press! white dudes think i’m three-fifths of a person!http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/stop-the-press-white-dudes-think-im-three-fifths-of-a-person/
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 15:29:34 +0000http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/?p=1475There’s a new preprint of a journal article, in which “alt-right” people were presented with the following:

“Black people” in general, probably because they’re presumed American, get a 6% boost over Nigerians. Note that these numbers are essentially “three-fifths of a person,” which is how they’ve viewed us for centuries.

These data don’t address what happens when the dehumanized categories intersect. I’m vegan, autistic, a mulatto, an anarchist, and someone who argues with them about feminism at the same time. Of course people talk to me like I’m subhuman every time I post something on the internet where people can reply to me. Having actual messengers from the Klan call me a nigger is a basic precondition of participating in politics. Absolutely basic. Deal with it every day. Politics obviously means the police put you under surveillance and belligerent racists fuck with you. If they’re not doing that to you, your politics are nonthreatening to fascism. It’s not something to be proud of.

Welcome to real life, anybody who was surprised by these findings. Your naiveté has helped them get this far.

What liberals are just starting to notice was apparent from the very first day of Trump’s candidacy.

Yes, Mexicans are 68% human. He said that right at the beginning. If you didn’t hear that, fuck you. If you thought it was a joke, fuck you. If you thought it would be good for Trump to be the nominee so Clinton could win, fuck you.

In the aftermath of the recent presidential election, it’s crucial that we don’t normalize the behaviors of radical conservatives. Those who call themselves the “alt-right” are distracting us from who they really are: white supremacists hell-bent on dismantling democracy. That’s why I refuse to call them “alt-right” and instead call them what they really are: my brother’s friends.

When we use the name “alt-right,” we acknowledge the legitimacy of their ideas as a new political faction, instead of what it always has been: my brother’s dumbass friends being racist fuckers. Saying “alt-right” distances the situation, making it seem like a valid political system we must respect. In truth, it’s just Pete, Jack, and Carson getting drunk on Bud Light, feeling insecure about their romantic or job prospects, and trying to make themselves feel big by talking about “real America.” By calling them my brother’s friends, I am undermining their power and talking about them on my terms.

Another problem with “alt-right” is that the term is so vague that it can be dangerous. Using such an innocuous term hinders us from calling them what they are—my brother’s friends. “Alt-right” might sound like they won’t hurt you, but anyone who knows my brother knows that those dudes are reckless partiers. They clean up fine in a polo and khakis, but most nights you’ll find them at the neighborhood bar getting into fights with Chucky from high school for no fucking reason. Those types of bumbling, destructive men are what make up the so-called “alt-right”, and it’s important to call them a name that communicates that.

]]>she would never dismiss what television had to say the way she dismisses what autistic people have to sayhttp://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/she-would-never-dismiss-what-television-had-to-say-the-way-she-dismisses-what-autistic-people-have-to-say/
Thu, 17 Aug 2017 06:57:23 +0000http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/?p=1473Unfortunately, I ended up on the Autism Speaks website for something unrelated, and I clicked on the bait: Don’t hate me for loving ‘Atypical’. I hate Atypical, and now I hate Kathy Hooven.

So I watched all 8 episodes of the new Netflix series, “Atypical” in a day. And yes, I’m upset they didn’t include an autistic actor and yes, I think it’s wrong autistics weren’t consulted in the creation of a character and yes, it was another show about a more high functioning autistic teen, and yes, it was another male instead of a female, and yes, there were stereotypes (again) and yes, feel free to judge away, I still loved it.

Perhaps I should have prefaced that first paragraph with the fact I do not have autism, I am a neurotypical mother who has three children, one of whom happens to have autism. That being said, “Atypical” is not a perfect show, but, is there any show that is perfect, besides Breaking Bad? As a mother of a child with autism, an autism blogger and an autism advocate, for me, “Atypical” did what it was created to do, it entertained me. I laughed, I cried, I sobbed BIG, UGLY tears and I even shouted, “Hell yeah” more than once!

Clearly, she wrote this article because she was aware of autistic people hating the show and giving their reasons. She heard those reasons, and is proud not to give a fuck because it affects her son and not her. If anything, it helps gain sympathy for her from other normal people. She hates autism and is not my friend.

It also brought back dark, lonely times. It reminded me of where I once was and where I am now. I felt the loneliness, the uncertainty and the guilt, oh dear heavens the guilt, all over again. I sent a text to me 19 year old neurotypical son who is away at college that read, “I’m sobbing through episode 4 of Atypical. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel less by trying to make Ryan feel more. I love you so much.” Then I went to my 11 year old neurotypical daughter and held her in my arms and said the same. Finally, I went to Ryan, my 15 year old son with autism and said, “Sorry for all the times I didn’t get it and screwed up.” Yep, guilt.

WTF she felt loneliness? Cry me a river. She’s married with children and no doubt has a community of other Autism Moms. A fraction of the loneliness rubbed off on her, and it was tragic. Her autistic son is an afterthought, even in her guilt.

She’s not the slightest bit sorry about not getting things, or she wouldn’t write an article flaunting that she doesn’t get it. Normal people lie all the fucking time about everything it’s so exhausting that I have to use my energy defending against their mendacity every time I talk to them oh my fucking god please kill me.

“Atypical” also made me laugh out loud, remembering things I had long since forgotten, but, mostly, it reminded me of the progress my son Ryan has made as well as the rest of our family. And although some of that progress, for all of us, was difficult, it was good to look back now and think, “we did it”.

This is the “All Lives Matter” of being proud of your kid. It blames her son for fucking up the entire family, like usual. The way I picture the family, she creates energy-draining black holes by making a huge production out of everything. I don’t care enough to really read her blog and find out if that true, because stereotypes are good enough for me too. Works both ways. Yes, I probably believe worse things about her than the truth, and those opinions cannot be changed. I can vent some of my stress to feel better, so who cares about her beyond her symbolic function? What a productive interaction she’s initiated: mutual hatred.

Normal people are bad at logic:

I know for parents loving a son or daughter with autism, many of us would like to see our child represented in a television show or movie so people would understand autism and our family. But we can’t talk about wanting our child to be seen as unique and not like the next kid with autism and expect Hollywood to create a character who fits every individual on the spectrum. We can’t yell, “no more stereotypes” then be discouraged when our kid doesn’t fit the next character with autism on our television or movie screen.

If the character had a personality instead of being a collection of offensive stereotypes, people would’ve been happy with the show. Any personality.

Many of us loved “Friends”, but did they hit every demographic of every 20 something in the 90’s? No. The Cosby show was a huge hit, but, did the Cosby family represent all black families in America? Not any more than Full House represented a white family in America. And as much as we love the day to day happenings at Seattle Grace Hospital, do you think every hospital in Seattle has a McDreamy or a McSteamy? Sadly, not. And for every 20 and 30 something woman who gathered around their televisions with girlfriends to watch Sex and the City while deciding which friend in their inner circle represented Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda, many weren’t having sex or living in the city. That’s Hollywood folks.

Yes, and Hollywood pushes the agenda of jocks and war criminals. She’s saying that getting autism right is tangential to The Autism Show. Normal people can’t be expected to get details right!

Of course I don’t want negative stereotypes about autism perpetuating mainstream media, and I know that there are many individuals with autism who are unable to work at a technology store fixing computers who are NOT represented anywhere in the media, but, I love that our autistic adults and children are represented at all. When my son was small there was no Julia muppet, no Max, no Sheldon Cooper and no Sam, at that time, for me, it felt like Ryan was the only child with autism that I knew and for a while he was. And even if “Atypical” continues some of those negative stereotypes, I hope that those stereotypes are at least a conversation starter. “Oh your son Ryan has autism? I watched Atypical, is Ryan just like Sam?” For decades, there was no one on our televisions to even start that conversation.

She doesn’t care about the negative stereotypes, because then she gets to play tolerant by correcting people. It’s not the same as living with the stereotype threat yourself.

“I love that our autistic adults and children are represented at all.” Read that again. Our autistic adults. Fuckin’ slave owner mentality. It’s also the neediest thing thing I’ve heard in my life. I don’t want shit about me on television if it’s stupid and wrong. Stay out of my life. I don’t want there to be Sheldon Cooper. I can start a conversation myself if I want to. And why do you rely on the television to start conversations?

Here’s the thing, when watching “Atypical”, of course I made comparisons to my son, of course I made comparisons to myself, but, just like Sam is not Ryan, I am not Elsa. Did I love seeing a family traveling a journey similar to mine on television? Of course I did, but, part of my binge watching had everything to do with hoping that Sam got his happy ending and transposing that hope for my son. Isn’t that what we all want in life and in a television series, a happy ending? And like any mother, there is no happy ending I want more, than for my children.

No, you are the reason so many movies and TV shows betray their artistic integrity to get your money. Too shallow to appreciate tragedy. Art as escapism instead of something to reflect on. Why does she need television to imagine a happy ending for her son?

As for my son Ryan, he had no interest in watching “Atypical” because “it’s not a Japanese show that includes anime which is much more interesting than what you are describing”. “Atypical” may not be for you, (or my son), but, for this mother, the creators of the series did what I believe they set out to do, entertain me and show me the ins and outs of another family, who happens to love a child with autism. Oh, and teach me a lot more than I ever knew about penguins and Antarctica.

Exactly. The show is for her, which is why she likes it. It’s for her, at a cost to me.

She would never dismiss what television had to say the way she dismisses what autistic people have to say.

]]>we’re going to die because bloomberg is more willing to name fascism than “the left”http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/were-going-to-die-because-bloomberg-is-more-willing-to-name-fascism-than-the-left/
Wed, 16 Aug 2017 04:41:43 +0000http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/?p=1469Over at Bloomberg, Mihir Sharma gave some much-needed international context to America’s partial breakdown of denial that the Klan runs America like always:

Briefly, before he went wildly off-script on Tuesday at Trump Tower, we lived in a world where the 45th president of the United States had finally managed to condemn Nazis. And let’s ask ourselves: Did that make us feel any better? Did the sight of Donald J. Trump glumly reading off a teleprompter remarks obviously written by someone else convince anyone that he understood his earlier error? Did we all begin to feel that America and the world were in safe hands?

Well, no, of course not.

Nobody in their right mind was any happier. Even before he confirmed that he didn’t actually mean what he’d said, nobody could have believed that Trump genuinely meant what he’d said. Nor could anyone have believed that his stilted statement on Monday deterred or dismayed the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who descended on Charlottesville this weekend.

If you don’t believe me, ask them. As Richard Spencer, the carefully coiffed leader of the “alt-right” said in response, “It sounded so hollow. … Only a dumb person would take those lines seriously.” Another white supremacist, Jared Taylor, pointed out that Trump’s comments “will not appease his enemies and they will not discourage his supporters.” Other white nationalists have said that they will only step up their rallies across the U.S. Nothing changed.

THANK YOU. If you expected anything other than what happened, you are too old to be that dumb.

We in India have played out our version of this dark farce for three years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi climbed to power with a record blemished by years of pandering to Hindu nationalists. Emboldened by his victory, the hardest core of his supporters asserted themselves across India through intimidation and violence. Muslims were lynched; people born into lower castes were publicly beaten. The prime minister was pressed: Why would he not address this violence?

For days after one particularly horrific lynching, Modi declined to respond. And then, when he did, nobody was really satisfied. Like Trump’s real reaction, there was a strong element of “both-sides-ism” in his response. His subsequent condemnations of religiously inspired violence have also made little difference to either his supporters or his critics.

This is unsurprising; after all, Modi’s actions haven’t exactly supported his words. Recently, his government came out with strong new rules governing the sale and transport of cattle that were widelyseen as providing cover to vigilantes seeking to target anyone associated with eating beef. He continues to patronize and elevate those associated with cow-related violence — most recently choosing as the leader of India’s largest state a monk-turned-politician whose personal militia has long been associated with such intimidation. And the prime minister himself follows, on Twitter, Hindu nationalists who tweet out threats and distortions. Modi’s actions speak far louder than his tepid criticism of violence.

And so it is with Trump. You may demand he condemn Nazis and eventually he might, half-heartedly — but nothing will change in the real world. Trump will continue to retweet white supremacist trolls. He will continue to listen to Steve Bannon, the dark lord of the alt-right. He will return to what he really feels the moment the teleprompter is turned off. And his White House’s policies willcontinue to be dog-whistles to the kind of people who marched and killed in Charlottesville.

So, once again, why demand that our leaders say the right thing? I may want to live in a country where my prime minister knows that cow vigilantes don’t deserve promotions. But I don’t. We all may want to live in a world in which the president of the U.S. knows that white supremacy is, well, bad. But that is clearly not the world in which we live. Even if Aaron Sorkin starts writing Trump’s speeches, he isn’t going to turn into Jed Bartlet.

Everyone knows when Trump’s words mean something and when they mean nothing. On Tuesday, at Trump Tower, they meant something. On Monday, at the White House, they meant nothing.

Counterpunch just published an important/sad article about how “the left” is actually dumber than Richard Spencer.

The organized left has been in serious trouble for years, which is evident in the decline of labor unions, the disappearance of leftist public intellectuals in academia, the rightward drift of the Democratic Party, and the complete failure of the Green Party to make inroads with the mass public. There are of course some positive signs, as seen in the rise of Black Lives Matter and protests against the Trump administration – particularly those protests that provide a constructive agenda by supporting greater government funding for education and the introduction of universal health care.

Despite these positive developments, much of “the left” – if one could call them that, have turned to increasingly desperate statements and actions in an effort to become relevant again to American politics. This desperation manifests itself in numerous forms. First, there is the trend toward dealing with the Trump administration and reactionary supporters with kid’s gloves, downplaying the importance of the right’s bigotry and prejudice, as seen not only in racist and xenophobic rhetoric, but policies that discriminate against Muslims, people of color, and immigrants. Some have claimed that Trump should be supported by leftists because of his election rhetoric about returning jobs to America, in opposition to free trade, and in support of normalizing relations with Russia. None of this rhetoric has manifested itself in tangible policy proposals or actual policies, now more than half a year into this administration, which is a sign of how little commitment Trump had to these positions. As it’s become harder and harder to maintain the myth that Trump’s electoral victory was a product of mounting anger among a working class left behind in the era of outsourcing and free trade, some on “the left” have tried to promote a “Brown-Red” alliance agenda by claiming that the far right can join with the far left to fight oppression and defeat the liberal media and the “deep state.”

Now some Green Party personalities and some of their “public intellectual” supporters who are nominally on the left seek to make common cause with openly white nationalist reactionaries. This development demonstrates a serious intellectual decline in what counts for “the left.” By downplaying the severity of the racist, sexist, classist, and xenophobic tendencies of the far-right and the reactionary elements of Trump’s base, individuals who claim to support the left betray the long history of resistance to bigotry, prejudice, and oppression that has historically defined progressive social movements. Any sane person should want to have nothing to do with right-wing bigots or fascists, although this point has been obscured in talk of a “Brown-Red” alliance.

The decision by Cobb and McKinney to ally with fascists is a serious betrayal of progressive values. It harms the credibility of anyone on the left who still claims the mantle of the democratic, anti-racist politics. The Green’s alliance will not be forgotten by people of color, immigrant rights groups, and those opposing America’s Islamophobic turn. One can’t realistically “work with” right-wing nationalists one minute, then claim common cause with minority groups that are the targets of reactionary fascists.

Much of what remains of “the left” today is comprised of anxious, angry individuals who are rightly angry at a dysfunctional political-economic system that fails to represent the needs of the bottom 99 percent. These individuals often feel deeply isolated from American mainstream society, and unfortunately, have been willing to gravitate toward all types of kooky ideas due to the decline of left-public intellectualism in the neoliberal era. As public educational institutions have been dismantled and privatized, professors have been pressured and bullied by administrators and state officials to abandon advocacy work. And with the decline of American labor unions, productive venues for progressive activism have also begun to dry up…

With the rise of “Brown-Red” alliance propaganda, some “leftists” have thrown their lot in with truly despicable individuals. For example, McKinney and Cobb have recently sought to make common cause with noted Alex Jones groupies such as Mike Cernovich and Robert Steele, both with deeply troubled histories of embracing white nationalism. Cernovich shamelessly embraces the rhetoric of “alt-right” sexists, referring to men he deems insufficiently masculine as “cucks,” while embracing conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate, and advocating IQ testing for immigrants. He has claimed that date rape is not real, and has encouraged men to “slut shame” black women to avoid AIDS. Steele is a David Duke sympathizer who publishes commentary along with Duke about the dangers of the “Zionist deep state,” as tied to conspiracies about how Jews control American politics, media, and banking institutions. Steele gained infamy after an appearance on Alex Jones’ Info Wars claiming that NASA was running a child slavery ring on Mars. And Steele explicitly compares Jews to animals, although I will not do him or Duke the favor of linking to any of his repulsive commentaries. Echoing Steele’s anti-semitism, McKinney also has a long, sordid history of collaborating with blatant anti-semites, despite the presence of many anti-Zionist activists and intellectuals throughout the U.S. and the world who reject anti-semitism.

Of course fascists are going to be dishonest. What’s awful is that it works because “the left” is letting them get away with it. Why the fuck is ANYTHING on Bloomberg more in touch with reality than “the opposition?”

I had a poster of this Dominique Appia painting in my college dorm room. I remember going to the poster shop with the idea in mind that I wanted surrealist posters. I don’t think I thought very hard about the painting intellectually. I didn’t know the name of it until just now.

The Tower of Pisa and the statue remind me of Italy. The glacier field reminds me of looking out airplane windows over Greenland. The water coming in is calming, like the beach. Invisible children with books, daydreaming…It’s peaceful to look at.

Today therapy was in a different room than usual, and I was surprised to see my old poster on the wall! Even more surprising was that apparently most people really don’t like the painting. LOL.

People have commented on the burning books, or on NOT liking the water rushing in. The statue’s facial expression creeps them out. I don’t understand why people are super turned off by my happy place, really. I wish that was my apartment.

]]>keeping politically incorrect conservatives out of academia is actually importanthttp://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/keeping-politically-incorrect-conservatives-out-of-academia-is-actually-important/
Sun, 13 Aug 2017 18:22:41 +0000http://thesubjectsupposedtoknow.us/?p=1463Conservatives love to write stupid shit about how they’re excluded from academia and how the “real” diversity is “ideological diversity,” defined as inclusion of right-wing stuff. There’s a very good, politically neutral reason for excluding them: their scholarship is dishonest and socially pernicious. How much more annoying is the conversation about the Women Are Stupid memo at Google because the right wingers are posturing about how they’re really just, y’know, being scientific here?

YouTube has in recent years become one of the most influential and powerful social media sites for conservative commentators and far-right and “alt-right” leaders, who have built large audiences outside of mainstream channels.

And it turns out the video-sharing platform, owned by Google, may even have been influential in the formulation of Damore’s beliefs.

The Harvard graduate chose the programs of two YouTube personalities with large rightwing followings for his first media appearances this week. At the end of a 51-minute conversation with Jordan Peterson, a University of Toronto psychology professor famous for his anti-transgender views, Damore said he agreed to do the interview because, he said, he was a “huge fan” of the Youtube personality.

Peterson, whose lectures and commentary are popular on YouTube and Reddit, told the Guardian that another Google employee and colleague of Damore had suggested the interview and connected them.

“He’s watched a very large number of my personality videos,” Peterson said of Damore, adding that he suspected that many of his lectures may have influenced the engineer’s memo. “I guess he trusted me.”…

Peterson’s personality research is published in respected journals, but his passionate criticisms of leftwing ideologies and “political correctness” that have made the biggest splash online. Last year, he earned the sympathy of the “alt-right” and grew his YouTube fame when he argued that it was his free speech right to refuse to use gender-neutral pronouns for trans and non-binary students.

None of those views would receive much credibility in mainstream academic circles, and he has proved a divisive figure on campus in Toronto. But among some YouTube viewers, Peterson is nothing short of a celebrity.

Damore’s memo closely echoed several arguments from Peterson’s lectures, such as the claim that women have higher rates of “agreeableness” (which makes it harder for them to be leaders) and higher levels of “neuroticism” and anxiety (making them less suited for high-stress positions). “The research is rock solid,” Peterson insisted.

Many of his peers disagree. The Damore memo has been discredited and debunked by scientists, who argue that Damore’s claims of differences between men and women are overstated and rely on deeply flawed research, and that his effort to use biological studies to make sweeping conclusions about workplace diversity is irresponsible.

Suzanne Sadedin, an evolutionary biologist who wrote a critique of Damore’s arguments, said there was significant research indicating that increasing diversity enhances a company’s performance. And Kenneth Leonard, a University of Maryland associate professor who has studied gender differences, pointed to studies showing that “the men who are the most upset about diversity are the least qualified”, because they are afraid they will lose their jobs.

It is precisely those men who may turn to YouTube personalities and communities that validate their anxieties and affirm their beliefs.

“Where YouTube is effective is it provides a vehicle for this pseudo-intellectualized bigotry,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University. “It’s marketed to a young white male audience that feels disenfranchised and feels a sense of unease at things going on at universities and workplaces.”

YouTube has changed the game for people like Peterson, who started using the site in 2013 and now broadcasts high-quality videos of his lectures, which can get tens of thousands of views. “It’s an astounding platform … a Gutenberg revolution, as far as I’m concerned,” he said of YouTube. “It’s expanded [my audience] to a degree that is almost unfathomable.”

He believes the reason his YouTube audience is predominantly male may also be rooted in biological differences. “I convey very large volumes of very philosophically interesting and practically useful information,” he said. “You see that men are higher interest in ideas and women are higher interest in aesthetics.”

Women, Peterson claimed, were therefore more drawn to other media platforms, like Tumblr and Pinterest.

Any honest person, who’s not already committed to woman-hating, would read this and find it self-evident that this is not what “scientific objectivity” looks like. It looks like a douchebag who found a platform because his colleagues failed to uphold high standards. Academia absolutely has an ethics and a value system associated with it. That’s where the emphasis on plagiarism and citations comes from. The right can take on the superficial appearance of science, and most people can’t tell the difference because the right has also deliberately undermined the education system.

Donald Trump did not invent right-wing mendacity.

In most of the arguments taking place between members of the general public, the right can get away with the premise that their worldview is scientific reality, when it’s the opposite. The audience won’t know how to distinguish science from pseudoscience, because they haven’t been taught.

Short of fixing the education system, we can fight back about this by keeping conservative bullshit artists out of the social sciences in the first place.

An American tourist in Germany was beaten up by a passer-by after he began giving the Nazi salute outside a cafe in Dresden, police said Sunday.

The incident occurred about 8:15 a.m. Saturday as the man left a cafe called Europe in the Neustadt district of Dresden, police said in a statement. The district is known to be a liberal part of the town and a popular meeting spot for students.

The tourist was identified only as a 41-year-old American man who was “severely drunk,” according to police. He suffered minor injuries, while the stranger who assailed him fled the scene, police said.

Police said the U.S. national is under investigation for violating German laws prohibiting Nazi symbols and that they are still seeking the passer-by for causing personal injury, according to the Associated Press.

The Nazi salute — the right arm straight and angled slightly up, palm down — was used as a greeting and a way of expressing devotion to Adolf Hitler under the Third Reich. Germany outlawed the salute after World War II, along with Holocaust denial and other symbols and signals associated with the Nazis. A conviction can carry a prison sentence of up to three years, although courts often impose fines instead.

Germany is not the only European country to ban the salute. Earlier this month, Switzerland’s Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man who appeared in 2013 photos making the Nazi salute outside a Geneva synagogue.

In Dresden, memories of World War II and Nazi practices have provoked clashes and divisions for decades.

Every year, hundreds of right-wing protesters from across Europe march in the eastern German city on February 13 to commemorate its bombardment by allied forces toward the end of World War II. Dresden had no strategic military significance and its destruction remains a dark chapter for the allied forces, which has been used by the far-right to stoke anti-American tensions.

In recent decades, the February 13 commemorations have repeatedly escalated into large-scale violent clashes between Nazis and participants of counter-protests, who fear that the far-right could hijack the city’s destruction during World War II for its political purposes.

Members of the region’s far-right movements have also made no secret out of their fascination with Hitler. The leader of a Dresden-based anti-migration group, Pegida, was once photographed with a Hitler mustache, for example. And last year, a group of Nazis on a train near Dresden forced a 32-year old Indian to perform a Hitler salute, raising fears of anti-immigrant attacks in the region.

Germany has socialists and stuff in addition to Nazis, so their freedom of political expression is higher than ours, in practice. The range of views under consideration is broader. This is despite all civilized members of the country finding Nazism completely unacceptable. “The First Amendment was written by slave traders” cannot be repeated enough. It’s grotesque that the far-right is allowed to make itself the pretend champion of any kind of freedom. In America, they can get away with saying that it’s a slippery slope to totalitarianism if we agree that trying to kill the Jews just isn’t allowed, ever. You can’t try to make it happen by talking about it. Just don’t be a Nazi.

Note that America couldn’t find it within itself to condemn Nazism at the United Nations, either, and that was under Obama. Trump is only different for openly supporting them here instead of only in the Ukraine where Americans won’t notice or care.

The cops over there punish Nazis instead of protecting them, and the citizens still beat Nazis up when they try that shit. Further, the Germans actively try to prevent the Nazis from twisting things around to make themselves look like victims, even when they have a point.

The first task of the Nazi revival is making itself seem mundane and normal so people don’t think about it too much. That’s a precondition for later operations. It’s not like the Nazis were in power and the Holocaust started the next day, although it’s probably like that in the imagination of American people. Eugenics is too implicitly popular here to people to consciously dwell on how the Nazis started with disabled people, not Jews.

From Robert Jay Lifton’s The Nazi Doctors, a succint summary:

Prior to Auschwitz and the other death camps, the Nazis established a policy of direct medical killing: that is, killing arranged within medical channels, by means of medical decisions, and carried out by doctors and their assistants. The Nazis called this program “euthanasia.” Since, for them, this term camouflaged mass murder, I have throughout this book enclosed it within quotation marks when referring to that program.

The Nazis based their justification for direct medical killing on the simple concept of “life unworthy of life” (lebensunwertes Leben). While the Nazis did not originate this concept, they carried it to its ultimate biological, racial, and “therapeutic” extreme.

Of the five identifiable steps by which the Nazis carried out the principle of “life unworthy of life,” coercive sterilization was the first. There followed the killing of “impaired” children in hospitals; and then the killing of “impaired” adults, mostly collected from mental hospitals, in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas. This project was extended (in the same killing centers) to “impaired” inmates of concentration and extermination camps and, finally, to mass killings, mostly of Jews, in the extermination camps themselves.

We have a problematic relationship with Nazism because we helped inspire it:

Only in Nazi Germany was sterilization a forerunner of mass murder. Programs of coercive sterilization were not peculiar to Nazi Germany. They have existed in much of the Western world, including the United States, which has a history of coercive and sometimes illegal sterilizations applied mostly to the underclass of our society. It was in the United States that a relatively simple form of vasectomy was developed at a penal institution around the turn of the century. This procedure, together with a rising interest in eugenics, led, by 1920, to the enactment of laws in twenty-five states providing for compulsory sterilization of the criminally insane and other people considered genetically inferior.

No wonder that Fritz Lenz, a German physician-geneticist advocate of sterilization (later a leading ideologue in the Nazi program of “racial hygiene”), could, in 1923, berate his countrymen for their backwardness in the domain of sterilization as compared with the United States. Lenz complained that provisions in the Weimar Constitution (prohibiting the infliction of bodily alterations on human beings) prevented widespread use of vasectomy techniques; that Germany had nothing to match the eugenics research institutions in England and the United States (for instance, that at Cold Spring Harbor, New York, led by Charles B. Davenport and funded by the Carnegie Institution in Washington and by Mary Harriman); and that Germany had no equivalent to the American laws prohibiting marriage both for people suffering from such conditions as epilepsy or mental retardation, and between people of different races. Lenz criticized America only for focusing too generally on preserving on preserving the “white race” instead of specifically on the “Nordic race”–yet was convinced that “the next round in the thousand year fight for the life of the Nordic race will probably be fought in America.” That single reservation suggests the early German focus on a specific racial entity, the “Nordic” or “Aryan race,” however unsupported by existing knowledge.

There had been plenty of racial-eugenic passion in the United States, impulses to sterilize large numbers of criminals and mental patients out of fear of “national degeneration” and of threat to the health of “the civilized races,” who were seen to be “biologically plunging downward.”

The truth is that Americans are Nazis in large numbers, and politicians are responsive to their concerns. When Donald Trump issues a non-condemnation condemnation, it’s worse than “not going far enough.” It actually makes his base continue to feel that “leftists” have so much power that the President of the United States of America, Leader of the Free World has to fake cry for niggers. They control politics so much that simple knowledge of history is “radical extremism” while they represent “unity on the right.”

This weekend, various far right groups are converging on Charlottesville, Virginia for a “Unite the Right” rally that may create the biggest test since last spring for progressives who want to resist the Donald Trump-empowered surge in white supremacy. Organizers anticipate a big crowd, perhaps in the thousands, which triggered legal action after Charlottesville officials tried to relocate the rally from its original location around a statue of Robert E. Lee in Emancipation Park to a location local law enforcement said could hold more people.

To be clear, neo-Nazis and the like tend to be disorganized and unreliable, so there are decent odds Unite the Right will be poorly attended, and the resulting atmosphere will be one of comical pathos rather than the menace far-right forces are hoping for. Unfortunately, as Bob Moser at the New Republic argued, there is one group that can help restore some lost dignity to the wannabe fascists: Progressive counter-protesters. Yes, the very people eager to fight white supremacists in the street may, as Moser argues, be helping the cause of white supremacy.

Notice how she cites The New Republic? I’d honestly sort of forgotten the magazine exists, and I usually stick to The Atlantic to read the opinion of liberals who get along with Republicans. Remember “liberal hawks” and the Iraq war? That was TNR. I’m linking to Marcotte’s article on Alternet, and it was originally from Salon, which I guess I’ve stopped reading because it won’t load with ads blocked, anymore. I used to actually pay money to subscribe to Salon when they were having a hard time paying the bills with ads. They got over that several editors ago.

Anyway, my point is that Marcotte is spreading crypto-right bullshit where people aren’t going to have their guard up. She battles the manosphere on the internet or something, so who would suspect her as a double agent?

They were acquitted and the feds were in on it. I trust Jeff Sessions will do his best to bring similar justice to the situation in Charlottesville.

It’s not like this wasn’t foreseeable, or hasn’t happened before. Despite that, Marcotte was expecting “comical pathos.” As if the cops and soldiers in the Klan aren’t 1000 times more organized and reliable than your average liberal…

The liberals have been laughing this entire time, right up to the day before people started dying at Klan rallies. The New York Times is dignifying them right now by calling them “white nationalists” in its coverage.

“By confronting both the various breeds of white supremacists with fury and violence, we’re giving them better media attention and recruitment tools than the worst of the worst could ever hope to muster for themselves,” Moser argued. He laid out a number of examples of how alt-right and KKK rallies are typically poorly attended by white supremacists themselves, and that the behavior of counter-protesters — who often outnumber the actual racists — are invariably used as propaganda by these groups to recruit more members online, which is where the real action is happening.

As Moser admits in his piece, however, this argument is emotionally unsatisfying, however rational it may be. The truth is that there is a rise in white supremacy, and it has become a potent political movement, in large part because it plays off people’s base emotions. Fighting back with rational and calm behavior feels inadequate. Progressives want opportunities to shame these people, confront them and, frankly, mess with them a little. Constant lectures about “When they go low, we go high” just don’t cut it anymore.

Yes, the “real action” is certainly happening online, where the trolling continues day and night.

Counter-protesters are only helping recruit fascists if you accept that they genuinely feel oppressed and under siege by “political correctness.” Marcotte is saying, “Don’t confirm their worst fears by telling them they’re unwelcome in your town!”

Why does being calm and rational feel inadequate to Marcotte? She can’t fucking think right is why. She’s not calmly and rationally strategizing against an intelligent adversary who’s doing the same. She’s in La-La Land thinking this is all some teasing in good fun.

It says everything that she writes about “frankly” wanting to “mess with them a little.” What a brave admission! She’s basically the topic of Hate is the New Sex by John Michael Greer. She’s so completely out of touch with her emotions, or at least completely unwilling to express them honestly, that she can’t just fucking hate the KKK like a decent person. She doesn’t want to fucking destroy the KKK. Obviously, that’s why they’re stronger fighters than she is and will win until the end of time if everyone listens to her.

As someone whose instinct is to run towards confrontation and not away from it, I decided to talk this out with Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center, whom Bob Moser used to work for. The SPLC also warns against counter-protesting, but, Beirich explained, this should not be confused with minimizing the seriousness of the white supremacy threat or claiming that ignoring bullies makes them go away.

“This is a legitimate group of people in the United States who have growing political power and who have frightening views when it comes to minorities,” she said. “I don’t find that you’re not standing up to bullies” if you resist the urge for angry confrontation, she continued. “I think you’re starving them of the oxygen that they live off,” meaning right-wingers’ pretense that they are constantly victimized, censored and assaulted, a narrative that tends to play better if they actually encounter violent confrontation in the streets.

Instead of counter-protesting, Beirich argued, progressives should speak out in other ways. She recommended speaking out online, lobbying politicians to fight hate crimes and holding counter-rallies at a different place or time.

“When you put on something positive that also gets coverage, it presents your community in a much better light, and it puts the focal point on the ideas that are the peaceful, caring ones,” Beirich said.

LOL Amanda Marcotte posing as somebody confrontational.

“This is a legitimate group of people.” I know she meant that they genuinely exist, but there’s surely a subconscious effect.

The absurd expectation they they could have a counter-rally “at a different place or time” and right-wing counterprotesters wouldn’t show up to it and cause drama! It’s like she doesn’t deeply understand that her opponents are sentient. That’s why she’s not too worried. I mean, wouldn’t you be scared if you were up against someone smart who fucking hats you and wants you dead?

Holding rallies not centered around direct confrontation with the alt-right has, I’d argue, another benefit: It’s far more inclusive. Direct confrontation on the streets that may lead to violence is a tactic that naturally favors young, able-bodied people, especially men. For women, disabled people, parents, older people and racial minorities that have stronger concerns about violence from white supremacists, the face-to-face showdown strategy can often be alienating.

Still, I totally get those who feel that holding hands and giving speeches about favoring love over hate doesn’t feel like nearly enough. People are angry and want, for very good reason, to screw with these guys a bit. Isn’t there any way to take the fight to the wannabe Nazis?

Implicit premise: racial minorities are pussies afraid to fight back, like they’re in wheelchairs. This never happened:

Actually, that has a lot to do with why Democrats favor gun control. Liberals are just too stupid to understand to know what a Dixiecrat was.

Again, it says everything that the only emotion she can feel towards the Klan is the desire to “screw with these guys a bit.” She calls them “wannabe Nazis,” because I guess they’re not real Nazis until Donald Trump moves further down his list of agenda items.

One thing that’s important to understand, Beirich noted, is that the alt-right “is an online movement, for the most part.” Some of its leaders have basically resorted to pleading with their followers to show up for actual events in the offline world. That has had some effect, with bigger crowds at the American Renaissance Conference and other rallies, but the primary audience and organizing platform for far-right activism remains the internet. Even when alt-right folks gather in person, it’s mostly about getting group photos that can be used to recruit new followers online by promising a sense of community.

So for those who are attracted to the simple pleasure of screwing with Nazis, the online world is where to go to make fools of these fools. Beirich suggested reporting hate speech on social media, but there are an increasing number of ways for progressives to use the same online tools used by white supremacists to organize against them.

This strategy has already been effective in disrupting the Charlottesville rally. Airbnb, likely in response to complaints from the public, cancelled the bookings of a number of people who were presumably coming to town for the rally. Gizmodo reports that there were concerns that some places were being rented to hold neo-Nazi parties.

Another delightful resistance movement involves messing with white supremacists and other bigots on Reddit, one of their favorite online gathering spots. As Ben Collins of The Daily Beast reported, a group of Redditors have started launching takeovers of forums that might attract the fascist-curious, turning them into clown shows. For instance, r/WhitePolitics is now flooded with posts discussing paint swatches. They also were able to defeat a request from former Breitbart writer and right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to take over the forum r/Faggots, which is now dedicated to discussing the bundling of logs. They also conquered a misogynist “pickup artist” forum, which is now mostly threads about picking up heavy objects.

If nothing else will do but direct, in-person confrontation, then organized mockery — as I’ve suggested before — is likely more effective than trying to argue with white supremacists or fight them.

Fighting in the street is a bad idea in general, but it happens because emotion will always move people more than reason and logic. It’s time to think creatively, for both individual activists and organizers, about how to channel people’s legitimate anger in ways that actually hurt the alt-right instead of help it.

Delightful! Her emotional experience of confronting vicious racists on the internet is that it’s all fun and games. She’s not torn between her duty to fucking do something and the serious toll it takes on her mental health.

She’s probably too stupid to see a connection between her frustrations as a “feminist” and the history of white guys raping their fancy maids.

Because she doesn’t see the life-and-death aspects of the situation, she surely doesn’t appreciate the deep history of things like writing to the cops or the state for help and then someone coming to your store with the letter to taunt you before they terrorize you at night. Because that’s how it was and still is. Despite the last several years of cops killing black people with impunity all over the media, she still has her white-lady trust of the cops and doesn’t think that her physical safety is in her own hands against some vicious motherfuckers.

The people showing up to fight the KKK with baseball bats are taking direct action against fascism. It’s a complete misunderstanding to think they’re trying to win an internet popularity contest. They’re taking agency as a community and enforcing community standards, like the way we handled problems for the first 200,000 years before there were police. They’ve already thought about it harder than she has and don’t have faith in the cops not to be Nazis themselves. But they believe much more deeply than her that being a Nazi is categorically unacceptable.